When he was 20, he enrolled in the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Florence, where he graduated in 2002 with a thesis on Albert Camus.

He starts painting towards the end of the 1990s, but he only has exhibited his works since 2008 in personal and collective exhibition, both in Italy and abroad.

He participated as a live performer in the whole tour of the show Hamlice, directed by Armando Punzo. In 2015 he drew the illustrations for the album “Un mistero di sogni avverati” by the Fiorentino singer Massimiliano Larocca, also live painting at some gigs of the tour.

He works with the fashion designer Augusto Titoni for the KIDZ brand, studying the technique of silk-screen printing on fabric and clothing items.

In 2018 he will release a volume of illustrations and aphorisms, created with the cartoonist Marco Galli from Brescia.

He lives and works in Pomarance, a small village in the province of Pisa.

GEOMETRICBANG / he was born in Lodi in 1984 and now lives in Florence working as an illustrator and muralist. He exhibited his works in many parts of the world, such as Russia, China, Canada, Spain, Germany, and South Africa, and painted murals in Italy, France and Spain. All his works are based on a continuous research on the use of colours and on characters of daily life – people, objects, plants – who become two-dimensional illustrations, easy to see but hard to read, as Jacopo Perfetti put it.

Giulia Conoscenti is an authentic Palermitan born in 1991. She lived there, enjoying the sea and sunlight, until she moved to the North, where she got acquainted with the fog. At the moment, she lives in Bologna and works as an illustrator. She is the co-founder or the PELO independent magazine. She works together with several worthy illustrators and always gets involved in new projects and collaborations. Besides drawing, she sometimes likes to write, manufacture stuff, jump during concerts and is happy to twirl around with her eyes closed!

Throughout history, mankind has always tried to limit the problems related to mice and rats. These little mammalian rodents can cause several problems for us bipeds willing to dominate the world: they invade places dedicated to food supplies, erode building materials, eat into books and documents, and even have the well-known ability to spread infectious diseases.

The muTT – Museum of Mousetraps – was created to gather proofs of this long-time duel between mankind and animals. It is a collection of traps and devices that have been used, throughout history, to catch mice and rodents, thus providing documentary evidence of the collective conscience related to this small tailed mammal.

The Autodafé exhibition is born from the need to bring together artists who come from different places in the world, and have them come together in a hypothetical procession of donkeys, people who platonically “know not to know” and for this reason want to “know themselves”, and with themselves know each other.

Autodafé. Act of faith, one of the most impressive juridical ceremonies put together by the Spanish inquisition, in which sentenced people, carried in procession with headscarves in the shape of donkey heads, were flogged and asked to repent of their sins, not to be burnt alive.

A repentance ceremony.

A reflection, through shame and pain, on one’s own identity and on what sin is, presumed or real, embodied in our own person.

Let’s now remove all references to religion, let’s take away from sin the sense of disobedience to any god, let’s remove all punishment, moral or physical, pain or guilt.

The act of faith that remains is the one each of us, men, should offer to humanity: the act of faith by man to his fellow man, through the reflexion on one’s past and present mistakes, in which our identity, mix of experience, culture of belonging, historical genetics, comes into collision and painful friction with other identities. With self-criticism, yes, but also with self-irony.

East against West, rich against poor, north against south, man against woman, white against black, x against y.

In one of the many central historic moments in which bewilderment and superstition, moral and morality, sacred individual principles and induced totalitarianism are changing and modifying our perception of the world and consequently our relationship, with an increasingly lonely otherness, the role of the artist, of the cultured man, of the intellectual or simply of those who think and feel, is perhaps to create a dialogue through an “act of faith”, a formal request for excuses, a step towards the other, for the society that the individual belongs to, in a way or another.

ARTISTS:

• Marco Wagner

Marco Wagner (*1982) studied design at the University of Applied Sciences in Würzburg, Germany
with a focus on book illustration and is working as an artist and illustrator since 2006. In his art he is facing the fears and discomfort from his childhood, while the main focus is on people ́s vulnerability in an assumed protective environment. Religion, nature and tradition represent the biggest threat for figures in his works, though they flaunt their wounds with strange pride.

• Nicolas Zouliamis

Nicolas Zouliamis was born and raised in Bruxelles. He first studied illustration and comics at École de Recherche Graphique (ERG) and then screenwriting at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). In 2009 he wrote a feature film, directed by Luc Dardenne, as an account of his accomplished studies. Also, in 2009 he published his first comic book “La volupté d’hectopascal” for the publishing house “Cinquième Couche”. Later, he has been working as illustrator, storyboarder and comic book artist and has published several stories, especially for the Latvian anthology KUS Comics. Nicolas has been living in Paris since 2013, where he still works as illustrator and works together with magazines such as XXL, éditions du Soleil, Acte sud etc… In April 2016 he opened his solo exhibition “Perpetuum Mobile” at “Le MAGA” gallery, Bruxelles. In this occasion he published the silkscreen book “ La mort du chien” (Bichel éditions). He currently works on projects addressed to children.

• Ufficio Misteri

Ufficio Misteri is a three-illustrator artist collective, based in Bologna at Via Andrea Costa 77. Marco Bassi, Daniele Castellano, Bruno Zocca conceive and create images for customers in the artistic and publishing industry, using the drawing as a tool to experiment its supernatural possibilities with the aim of intertwining their signs and visual worlds.

The exhibition is the result of the project of buying and selling memories, which started a year ago: a service that allows whoever to forget some events of their own past, gaining also a little spare change. Looking into the memories offered by the public, Ufficio Misteri has identified some intriguing similarities among several cases: the past of three people was haunted by feline sinister presences, evoked by a common guilt and a trauma dating back to childhood. In order to investigate thoroughly in the memory of these people, Ufficio Misteri has called upon the ghostwriter Marco Taddei, whose help played a key role in the resolution of the case.

• Mohammad Barrangi

I am Mohammad Barrangi Fashtam.I am an illustrator and printmaker. I was born at Rasht, a northern city of Iran. It is about 9 years that I constantly illustrate for book and participate in different festivals. In this context, I try to professionally pursue my passion in life. I personally inspired by East. The place that I was born in it. By the elements that I have seen and engage since my childhood.

Oriental art has been reflected in my art with contemporary vision. The synchronization that is a feature of Iranian painting and the simplification in form and color along with motifs of this culture, are reflected in my art works. I create the ingenuity of elimination by reducing the number of colors to minimum. The colors used in my artworks are inspired by old tiles and Persian rugs. Showing this relationship is by modifying the components without changing their nature. I try to illustrate the symbols and signs coming from Iranian believes and eastern people. The symbols that might common in other cultures and tribes` believes. This images comes from my memories. Walking in Old Street of the city that I was born in it. The symbols and signs that are in above the doors combining with religious and art. I express my thought on the spirit of contemporary life by the characteristic of each person that turns to the animal. Their spirit empowered on them like the leadership and the potential impact of their life which shows how each person is going to engage with it. It delightful for me to take viewer to a long journey in east, Iran. Because I believe the people of other countries might not have the opportunity to travel and see other countries. So I create images coming from my soul and feeling showing a part of my land. The types are something such as poetry for me. My imagination about the eastern is so much powerful that each artist can create his or her personal style regarding their personal experiences. showing this mood that i currently living in it, motivates visitors to have a new look into the east.

• Luca Poncetta
Born in Italy in 1980. Currently living in Bologna and working in theatre, visual and performing arts. I worked as a creative consultant for visual and dramaturgic aspects of projects that have been hosted in various national and international festivals: Queer Festival (New York, US), Fringe Festival (Edinburgh, UK), The World as a Place of Truth (Wroclaw, Poland), Together Apart (Hamburg, Germany), Romaeuropa Festival (Roma, I), Santarcangelo International Festival (Santarcangelo, I).

• Insu Lee

Insu Lee is a visual artist who lives and works in Seoul and New York. He earned a BFA in Visual Design at Hongik University in Seoul and a MFA in Illustration at School of Visual Arts in New York.He has completed multiple projects with a wide range of clients as an illustrator, and his work has been awarded by American Illustration, Creative Quarterly, AOI World Illustration, and 3X3 International Illustration. His works have also displayed many times in various galleries in USA, Asia, and Europe.

My work represents the combining together of diametric forces, fusing to accomplish a harmonious existence of human nature and conflicting ideologies.

• Serena Zanardi

Serena Zanardi was born in 1978 in Genoa, where she currently lives and works. Following her graduation at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara, she attended a course to specialise in languages and technologies of the contemporary photography project at the CPFR Bauer, Milan. In 2013 she won the San Fedele award. She has taken part into exhibitions and artist-in-residence programs both in Italy and abroad: Icaf, Sasama (Japan), Bocs Cosenza, CAIR Ceramic Artist Residence (Neümunster), FRAC Corse (Ajaccio), Albisola artisti cercasi…

I must have been five, six years old and, one day, my grandpa showed to me a dead mole, hit by the hoe. He laid the little animal on a table and tried to “teach” me that it was nogood for the garden so it should be killed. I looked for some scraps of cloth to set up a crib, where I placed the animal. I thought that in this way the mole could have “recovered” from death. I didn’t know back then that death exists and that the animal is blind by nature. Many moles represent my act of faith, a stimulus to think about prejudices, about what we did wrong and what we are doing wrong.

This year We’ll not just celebrate Ratatà Festival’ 5th editon:2018 will also be the 10th anniversary of Strane Dizioni, the independent publishing house, one of the most important in Italy, deus ex machina of the festival itself.
Along its long career has screenprinted,produced books and posters on limited edition of some of the most interesting authors related to contemporary illustration and comic scene, including Igor Hofbauer, Jesse Jacobs, Celine Guichard, Tomi Um, Henning Wagenbreth, Nora Krug, and many others.

One of the festival’s silent rules is to avoidhostingthe sameartists repeatedly.

We are hosting Simone Manfrini’s artwork for the third timein the upcoming editionbecause he is young, because he’s good and because every year he presents us with a new and increasingly powerful project.

After all, we don’t care about rules.

Simone Manfrini (Ancona, 26 September 1990).

I’ve always drawn for as long as I can remember. As achild I doodledall overthe wall of my home’s balcony… I was a writer!

Now I draw on paper, but very little has changed.The intention has remainedthe same: making magic, creating ideas of matter with other matter.

In 2006 I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata withmy comic book-final dissertation “Brecce Bianche”.

I am currently teaching at the Podesti Calzecchi Onesti Institute in Chiaravalle and I keep drawing!

Matthias Lehmann lives and works in Parisian region where is born in 1978. Practising intensely etching technique ( but also drawing pen and crayon drawing and even painting), he started to publish sketches and some comics in more and more rampant trend of fanzines and graphzine of 90’s in France and abroad, like his fanzines Rancune Comix (published already in 1995), Strip Burger, Thank God It’s Ugly or Le Martien.

He took part equally to some anthologies that made history like the famous Comix 2000, Lapin, Hopital Brut or Dirty Stories in USA, and he takes part to kiosk’s adventure cooperating with magazines as Jade, Ferraille, Le Psikopat or Capsule Cosmique, and even more recently with Pandora and even with Fluide Glacial, collaboration with Nicolas Moog. With him signs the book Qu’importe la mitraille publication, a collection of short stories in which both authors openly discuss about their profession.

In recent years is on more traditional newspaper as illustrator, for Libération (in which he illustrates the “controversy of progress”) or Le Monde, XXI, Siné Mensuel, Marianne etc., all continuing to supervising an activity of comics’ author. Simultaneously to his graphic activity, he’s a big lover of American folk’s and loud music, he plays and sings in Row Death’s band (in which comes out the first vinyl by Le Disque de La Face Cachée).

He collaborates also in 2015 to the project of sketched concerts “On Alan Lomax’s road”, with KING BISCUIT’s group, a team from Rouen composed by the duo of Sylvain Choinier (guitar, voice) and Fred Jouhannet (violin, etc.).

He published around 10 books, that 3 of these published by Actes Sud BD, in particular LA FAVOURITE published on April 2015, translated in 3 languages and for which it gained several rewards.

He studied Art and Design and specializes in the Editorial Illustration.
He expresses his creativity through the collage technique, using plain paper that carves without following a drawing,tracing forms with his paper knife like it was a pencil.
Milan represents for him the opportunity to move across different realities (fashion, music, set design, video).
He recently collaborated on projects with Fabriano, Nike, Tiffany, Armani, Fendi, as well as national and international newspapers.
In 2017, Forbes ranked him among the 30 most influential Under-30 artists in Europe.

Biography: (Fontanesi didn’t want to write it down, then he said “I’ll think about it”)

About the exhibit: Fontanesi is a mysterious artist who uses photography to show the reality just as it is. In February, DE PRESS published a fanzine of his for the first time. This will be his first exhibit.

della sera”, “Frigidaire”, “Nerocromo” (with Earl Foureyes), and by “Il Manifesto” (for Alias Comics). He published collections and anthologies of short stories, and the novel “C’era una volta il Nordest” by Nerocromo. He showed his works during the most important comic festivals, such as Lucca, Naples, Treviso, Angouleme and Seoul; his works were exhibited also in cultural centres, museums and art galleries.

About the exhibit: more than 90 Earl Foureyes Mutant Detective-tribute works by several Italian illustrators. A special international guest will take part, Danijel Zezelj.

DE PRESS was established in November 2016. Its first publication was “Scusa” by Andrea De Franco. In 2017, Beatrice Bertaccini, Elettra Esposito, Lorenzo Matteucci and Chiara Polverini joined the project. Since then, they have been taking part in many festivals all over the Europe and have established collaborations with many artists, such as Michele Galluzzo, Alice Fiorelli, Mattia Angelini and Fontanesi.
Their fanzines are located in a no man’s land, among comics and art books.

About the exhibit: for the first time a selection of works by DE PRESS authors will be exhibited : “Piccolo Niente”, “La Meraviglia Carnosa Che Ho Perduto Nel Bosco”, “Drammatico Come Un Van Gogh”, “Hommage”, “Due Mani Per Pregare”, “Il Trittico”.

Felipe Almendros (Badalona, ​​1976) is one of those genuine artists whojump the creative abyss without calculating nor the highness or longness of the jump, without planning theconsequences. It is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting authors of comics in Spain, with a personal and refined artistic universe. Almendros is a rare animal:reads very little comics and confesses that fans of this genre look rather nerd or freak.Inconsciously, he’s considered asan artist who maintains many parallels with the authors with many indie-American-comics authors-VIPs presenting some common guidelines with names such as Chester Brown (even admitting has never read CB stuff) or those included on MOME anthologies published by Fantagraphics.Author of Pony Boy (Glénat, 2007) and of the SOS triptych (Apa-Apa, 2009), RIP(Reservoir Books, 2011) and VIP (Reservoir Books, 2016). In his latest work,experiments with different formats even including a disk offive songs “Dara Prosa”, which completes the bizarre storyof VIP.

Isidro Ferrer (Madrid, 1963) is an illustrator and graphic designer. Graduated in Dramatic Arts and Scenography, he acted for several theater companies in the 80s and after various vicissitudes, he left the stage to discover his vocation in graphic communication. His first steps in this field moved him as an illustrator in the newspaper El Heraldo de Aragón in 1988 and subsequently completed his training in Barcelona, ​​in the Peret study.

In 1989, together with other designers, he created Studio Camaleón in Zaragoza and began to collect various awards, such as the Ministry of Culture for the book “El Vuelo de la Razón: A Vision of Goya”.

Since 1996 he opened his studio in Huesca and started working regularly withSantillana, Alfaguara and the newspaper El País.

Since 2000 he has been a member of AGI (Alliance GraphiqueInternationale) and in the same year his work was included in the Signs of the Century exhibition. Shortly thereafter, in 2002, he received the National Design Award assigned by the Ministry of Science and Technology. In addition, in 2006 he won the National Award of the Ministry of Education and Culture as best illustrator for children with the book “A house for the grandfather”.

During his career as a graphic artist, he continued to be closely linked to the world of the theatre stage, creating numerous posters.

Among his clients are Canal +, El País, Santillana and the National Dramatic Center, for which he worked on seasons 2006’, 2008’ and 2009’ seasons drawing the posters’ show.

He regularly holds workshops of design and illustration, and his work has been exhibited in various countries in the world including Croatia, Portugal, France, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, at the Cultural Center of Spain in Honduras, El Salvador, Peru and on the United States.

BLIND BUTCHER is an abstract musical duo from Lucerne Switzerland in GLITTER TIGHTS and a crazy irritating post punk rock attitude. Since 2010, they have been devoted to ROCK’N’ROLL, NEW & NO WAVE, Suicide Disco, Punk, Blues, KRAUT ROCK, NDW or Country Music and creating their very own very Unique DISCO TRASH SOUND

In 2013, they recorded their debut album and since then the Band played more than 100 SHOWS a year in Europe.On this new album ‘ALAWALAWA’ (Voodoo Rhythm Rec), they create a moronic unabated crazy musical universe they sing in English, German, or GIBBERISH with view word except “ALLES MACHT WEITER” where it only bubbles from text They are from a Generation that wants to be free and CREATE WITHOUT ANY BORDERS and Styles just like in the Title Song ALAWALAWA, they sing it in gibberish or ‘STAUBSAUGERBABY’ (vacuum cleaner baby) which there is no meaning at all.

Through the game we will try to establish a relationships between the subject and the object, to clarify what match us to the objects and how they talk about us and define us. We will try to delineate our image based on the value of things, their instrumental function and our closeness to them, trying to indicate the significant elements and the communicative values ​​of what we surround ourselves to represent ourselves. The game will bring us closer to the material with which the objects are constructed and to their expressive qualities, we will constitute a structure of visions that can contribute to give meaning to the insignificant. We will try to recover the hidden value of objects, restore their poetic character and establish relationships between them. We will try to multiply the semantic values ​​of objects by transfiguring their utilitarian function. Through play and channeling the possibilities offered by chance, we will ponder a transversal vision that overcomes the consolidated meanings in search of new expressive values. We will try to do things with things, building from what is destroyed by making sure that the result contains a functionality. We will work with as many types of waste and recycling materials as possible: wood remains, scrap, pipes, hydraulic waste, toys, electronic or not, useless items …VERY IMPORTANT: the outcome of the workshop depends on the quality and quantity of allowances and contributions made.No one should participate in the workshop without contributing with this type of material. * Number of participants: 25 maxPrice per participant: € 35Date: Thursday 12 from 10am to 7pm * we will provide all the materials and tools necessary for processing as well as procure as much recycled material as possible, but it is useful that by making a selection each bring a small amount of old objects to be used for the construction of new ones!

As the killer cleans his knife, Raw Death sharpens guitars and dobros. The group has a yellow-toothed mouth, plays country music and invites the public to get to the bar and pay a ride. Raw Death is Sir Verdun and Plague Henry. They released an LP with the label La Face Cachée.

This is not a love song – Juke box all’idrogeno, Corso della Repubblica 41 Macerata MC

Days: 20/04 > 07/05
Time: from Monday to Friday, from 9 to 20 – Saturday from 9 to 13 and from 15 to 20.
Jukebox all’Idrogeno Music Shop Corso Repubblica 41 Macerata

TINALS – This Is Not A Love Song

9+9

Every cassette is an illustrated love song

An infinite tank of universal love songs from which cartoonists, illustrators and graphic designers draw creative inspiration to bring to life imaginative paper cassettes.

That underlined “not” means everything and nothing. TINALS idea comes from this provocative negation: it is a project that combines music with comics/illustration/graphics, trying to find the intimate and elusive truth of a love song… sometimes. Other times, instead, it irreversibly overturns it.

TINALS is a real paper cassette, with a cover and a plastic case. Each cassette is an illustrated love song.

AMORENÒ is the name of the series of illustrated cassettes exclusively dedicated to Italian music. The protagonists of this series are those love songs that made and make the Italian history of music. “Amore”, love, and “no”: two words representing the blunt and perfect synthesis of TINALS essence. Sentiment and negation, passion and disillusion, misery and irreverence. AmoreNò can also be considered a desperate begging, such as that sung by Piero Ciampi in Tu no: “Tu no, tu no, tu no / Tu non puoi andare via / Tu non devi andare via / Tu no, amore, no”.

The project This Is Not A Love Song started in 2013 and now includes more than 150 song titles ranging through the history of music: from all-time classics to recent hits and hidden gems, from different times and musical genres. From Elvis Presley to Nirvana, from the Cure to the Slint, from the Beatles to the Arcade Fire, going through Nick Drake, Britney Spears, Bob Dylan, Joy Division, Ramones, Smashing Pumpkins, Velvet Underground, Pearl Jam to Syd Barrett, Sonic Youth, Jesus And Mary Chain, Bon Iver, The Smiths, Beach Boys and many more. And then Lucio Battisti, Fabrizio De André, Francesco De Gregori, Franco Battiato, Paolo Conte… but also CCCP, Verdena, Calcutta, Massimo Volume, Diaframma…

This project is brought to life by the illustrations of the best cartoonists and illustrators in Italy, both well-known and emerging artists. Here are some of the most famous of this prestigious list: